Hey TJHUB,
First off, I wanted to say I truly enjoyed your AVS thread regarding your journey with the Ascend Sierras, B&W's, and other speakers you considered. I found your posts to be uncommonly honest, sincere, and down to earth. It was so refreshing to see a "real" person giving "real" opinions, and outwardly expressing his desires and needs from his speakers. It's unfortunate that thread was marred by immaturity toward the end, but I thoroughly appreciated your comments
.
Ok, enough about that. About using PEQ, I'm certainly no pro, as I'm actually just learning it and using it for the first time as well. While you certainly
can do things manually, REW is incredibly useful. I made a manual bass response plot with an SPL meter and test tones in 1hz increments, and I'm not convinced it came out near as accurately as REW's sweeps. In addition, REW can allow you to easily visualize the approximate effect certain filters will have on your FR. You have no idea how helpful this is until you use it (and try EQing without it!). Again, if you're really convinced that doing it manually is the way to go, more power to you. I already respect your resolve and honest dedication to your audio setup immensely, and I'm sure you will end up achieving great results. REW can just do so much to help, as well as make measurements you can't do with just an SPL meter and a piece of paper, that I strongly urge you to try it, if possible. At any rate, best of luck in your endeavor. Hope to see you around this forum - it's an extremely friendly, positive environment, and in my experience, completely devoid of the "baggage" that is unfortunately many times encountered elsewhere. Good luck!
Stephen